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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27951950">Four Fell Words</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiredEagleOfManwe/pseuds/TiredEagleOfManwe'>TiredEagleOfManwe</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Sufferings of Sanguinius [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Horus Heresy - Various Authors, Warhammer - All Media Types, Warhammer 40.000</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Betrayal, Brotherly Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Daemons, Darkness, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Grimdark, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mental Anguish, One Shot, POV Third Person Omniscient, Sacrifice, Surreal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:01:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,282</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27951950</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiredEagleOfManwe/pseuds/TiredEagleOfManwe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>During the climatic battle on Signus Prime the daemon prince Ka'Bandha speaks four fell words and Sanguinius' entire world unravels...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Horus Lupercal/Sanguinius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Sufferings of Sanguinius [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614991</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Four Fell Words</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <em>Horus has betrayed you.</em>
</p><p>(the universe staggers to a stop. It unwinds. A stunned breath is taken. Within the warp were notions of linear time are meaningless a black psionic death-scream rips backwards and forwards from past to future…)</p><p>The four words are spoken with unremorseful relish, flowing from the fanged maw of a monstrous bloodwashed entity that should not exist – that was not <em>supposed</em> to exist. The fell words smite Sanguinius’ ears and pierce his hearts like an envenomed sword, heralding the beginning of the end – the end of hope, the end of brotherhood, the end of the <em>dream</em>.</p><p>The Emperor’s dream is destroyed; Mankind’s ultimate doom is declared, as unavoidable as loss and as inescapable as death.</p><p>Sanguinius is still, his fury overthrown in the face of this revelation. The Archangel of Baal is hope incarnate: the promise of a future the four fell words devour in the breath it takes to give them utterance. Upon the blighted surface of Signus Prime, in the presence of a being who is anathema to the primarch’s own understanding of the workings of the universe, Sanguinius dies for the first time.</p><p>(for the first time – not for the last).</p><p>
  <em>Horus has betrayed you.</em>
</p><p>He did not want to believe. Not even when Amit proclaimed aloud what had been gnawing in the nethermost reaches of the primarch’s mind before the assembled hosts of the Ninth Legion. He would have sooner slain his own son rather then dare entertain the possibility of betrayal. Even as the impossible became hideously possible and the Angel bore witness to the slaughter of sanity itself and the very reconfiguring of reality <em>he did not want to believe.</em></p><p>Sanguinius knows Ka’Bandha is not lying to him. This thing – this <em>daemon</em> – has confirmed the primarch’s deepest, vilest fear and none can naysay his revelation. The Angel believes him. His Legion has been betrayed, tricked, trapped. Genhanced vitae spills from the jaws of living monsters; Blood Angels fight against incarnate myths and legions from Mankind’s darkest nightmares; an angelic demigod and a daemonic prince face one another in the crucible of battle…</p><p>The Emperor has lied to him. The Imperial Truth is a farce, for the veil of the materium has been torn in two and the creatures lurking within the bowls of unreality are privy to his name.</p><p>Horus has led him to this pass: Horus, the Warmaster; Horus, the first-found son; Horus Lupercal, the brother whom Sanguinius loves above all others.</p><p>
  <em>Horus has betrayed you</em>
</p><p>The sword pierces deeper. Treachery. Treason. Betrayal. Something black and abyssal turns over in the depths primarch’s innermost self. Turns like a slumbering prehistoric beast stirring towards wakefulness in the depths of Terra’s long-lost primordial oceans. Sanguinius clutches despairingly at the dream even as it withers in flames. Deep within him a pair of monstrous jaws part in the anticipation of a scream that will last forever.</p><p>(<em>o my brother, what have you done; what have you done to father, to me, to us –)</em></p><p>Horus and Sanguinius exist to fulfill a specific goal. None of the primarchs are exempt from the Emperor’s grand designs – even a wretch like Curze has a part to play in the Great Crusade being waged to unify humanity. But Horus is their commander: the first among equals, the inheritor of all that has been accomplished thus far. The chosen son has spat upon the honors bestowed upon him; he has renounced the responsibility entrusted to him. He has betrayed them all. He spatters the blood of loyal sons across his brothers' faces; he pours the ashes of defiant Imperial worlds into their mouths. Bitterness blights their hearts and shutters their sight. Horus is lost to them, never to be refound. Lost, beyond all notions of forgiveness or redemption.    </p><p>Lupercal has turned against their Father and maker and has set his face against the very cause of their creation. Hope twists into black despair; promise is replaced by broken oaths; progress succumbs to stagnation. Horus has fallen. Horus is rising. Let the galaxy burn.</p><p>On Signus a murder is committed, more foul and potent then any carried out before it. The consequences reverberate for all eternity. The warp trembles in triumph; somewhere a bell tolls, marking a beginning and heralding an end. Sangiunius stares at Ka’Bandha. The daemon stares back, a dark tongue uncoiling to taste the Angel’s pain.              </p><p>The four Primordial Powers exalt in the moment, savoring the death of hope like the choicest of fine wines. The Lord of Skulls smiles grandly upon his chosen representative. Under the attentions of Ka’Bandha an army of angels will butcher the galaxy under the red ragged banners of the Blood God.      </p><p>Horus has murdered the brother who believed in him, the one who lauded him as Warmaster without envy or resentment poisoning his hearts. He murders Sanguinius with each Blood Angel legionary torn apart by daemonic claws; murders him with each wound inflicted upon his flawless physique; murders him with four fell words that unravel his world and everything within it.</p><p>
  <em>Horus has betrayed you.</em>
</p><p>The sword twists. Treachery. Treason. Betrayal. The bridge of the <em>Vengeful Spirit</em> is already drenched in the Angel’s priceless blood even if he does not know it yet. The roused beast within turns again. In the single fatal second it takes Sanguinius’ godlike mind to process the full ramifications of his brother’s betrayal Ka’Bandha lashes out with his whip; its many thongs curl around the primarch’s legs and shatter his bones, casting him to the ground.</p><p>The Great Angel is fallen. Heed it well, for here is the beginning of sorrows. Here is the true birth of the grief and the rage that will see his gene-sons tormented for ten thousand years in a grim dark future where there is only war, forever denied the guidence of their father and the star-spanning dream they were tasked to bring to fulfillment together.</p><p>This is where it began: on Signus, with four fell words.</p><p>This is what Horus has done, never to be undone. Sanguinius did not want to believe. He loved his big brother. Hoped in him. Trusted in him. And when the final end comes, when he and Horus battle each other on the bridge of the <em>Vengeful Spirit</em>, is there some part of him that still hopes, even then, it is all a mistake or a nightmare or a lie?</p><p>Even as the creature who had once his beloved brother impales him with his Talons and the abyssal beast (fully awakened now) arises to consume him, does some fragment of Sanguinius’ hearts still clutch at this hope even as it is torn from him along with his life?</p><p>Does Sanguinius still hope Horus will come to himself and repent? That the dream can still be salvaged and carried forward? That his Father’s Imperium will live on as He envisioned it?</p><p>As the primarch’s lifeblood flows from his tortured body and the laughter of thirsting gods violates his agonized mind, does Sanguinius still cling to the hope of a brighter future for Mankind? Is this the truth behind his sacrifice? Will his death ensure the survival of something righteous and honorable or will the bloodlust and madness of his orphaned sons remain his sole legacy?</p><p>
  <em>Horus has betrayed you.</em>
</p><p>It begins on Signus Prime. It will end (it has ended) aboard the <em>Vengeful Spirit,</em> never to be undone. The bloodwashed daemon prince utters four fell words and the universe staggers to a stop. It unwinds. A stunned breath is taken. Within the warp were notions of linear time are meaningless a black psionic death-scream rips backwards and forwards from past to future as one-by-one the angels fall…      </p><p> </p><p>  </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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